In Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), active illumination systems, preferably of infrared wavelength, are useful to realize several functions ranging from Night Vision to different methods of three-dimensional optical sensing like time-of-flight techniques using a pulsed or periodically modulated active illumination or different techniques based on the triangulation method, for example structured-light imaging or stereo-vision at night.
In order to achieve large illumination angles, the optical unit projecting the illumination field should be installed either in the headlamp or radiator cowling region, in the front of the car excluding more re-entrant locations, or, alternatively, in the top-middle area of the windshield or the windshield corners.
However, for the mitigation of injuries to pedestrians in car-pedestrian crash events, the front of an automobile should be engineered such that it absorbs the impact energy by relatively soft deformation and receding of the exposed components. That leads to problems as regards the integration of driver assistance systems.